"Mind the Gap - 2007 Q1 Newsletter
MODEL FOUNDRY SERVICES (MFS) NEWSLETTER
January 2007 Edition
Volume 1
The Model Foundry Services Team Wishes you a Happy New Year
"Mind the Gap"
~ Welcome to our first issue for the New Year, 2007~
In this issue we communicate with you around the MFS slogan, ?Mind the Gap?, that we believe represents one of the biggest challenges in connecting chips to systems.
The First gap is between what a system engineer would like to simulate at the board level and what he gets from chip companies (paper spec, silicon and sometimes reference design). This leads to less efficient, more expensive and longer lead time design flow. MFS creates behavioral models for the chips (e.g. memories, peripherals, processors) so that the system can be modeled before it is manufactured. Major advantages to creating behavioral models are limiting errors, risks of respins while gaining time to market advantage.
The Second gap is the modeling environment that is used. Some chip companies offer a model that can only be used in a specific simulation environment, locking the customer into one specific set of tools with additional costs associated to using the models. MFS offers models in open standard environment, Verilog or VHDL that can be used in any simulation environment with possibility of having it freely available at our open source model warehouse, www.FreeModelFoundry.com. Note that each customer will be able to reuse the model in its design, without recreating it as very often done until now.
The Third gap is on the accuracy of the specifications. Chips specifications are provided in paper and very often do not cover the entire functionalities, or do not accurately represent the reality. In order to solve that MFS offers an executable specification that can be used to model the performance and also used to verify basic interconnectivity at the board level. MFS models provide great leverage during your evaluation process with your customers. Another application is to ensure better design flow and accuracy within your own organizations by creating model for your marketing specifications thereby ensuring that the chip design matches its original specifications.
Looking for behavioral models for board verification for your marketing spec or your components? We are a team of seasoned engineers led by an industry expert, Rick Munden, author of the best selling book on the subject, "ASIC & FPGA Verification - A Guide to Component Modeling" available to advise, manage and create solutions for your chip modeling needs.
To learn more about Model Foundry Services please contact us at sales@Model Foundry Services.com to discuss your requirements, or visit us at www.ModelFoundryServices.com
Model Foundry Services (MFS) User Experience Column
This column shares user experiences from our open source model distribution site, www.FreeModelFoundry.com.
This month's experience is shared by Alessandro De Santis, a freelance engineer in Italy. Alessandro writes:
A complex task like interfacing to a MMC or SD card cannot be carried on all at once. Components have to be developed, tested and then connected together. When my VHDL SPI component was ready I did some research to see what simulation model was available on the net. I was pretty disappointed when I discovered that currently the subject has not already caught the interest it should.
Though major components manufacturers provide models often their use is restricted to a single simulator and this is mainly because they need to protect their code by encryption. Free Model Foundry is the only source of models I found that gives the matter the importance it deserves. I could quickly find a suitable model and easily drop it into my project. When I updated the project it only took a click to recompile and see that everything was alright."
Thank You.
To learn more about Model Foundry Services please contact us at sales@Model Foundry Services.com to discuss your requirements or visit us at Model Foundry Services.
Model Foundry Services
http://www.ModelFoundryServices.com
Tel: 1-408-774-1884